The mechanical properties of woven tape all-polypropylene composites

The influence of process parameters on the properties of hot compacted self-reinforced polypropylene composites

“…This process uses bicomponent tapes, in which the outer layer is a lower-melting point copolymer and the inner layer is a homopolymer. This increases the processing window from a few degrees [7][8][9]] to a few tens of degrees Celsius [3]. The main advantage is that co-extrusion works at a lower temperature and can therefore maintain higher mechanical properties.…”

“…This process has a narrow, yet viable temperature window. An alternative process is co-extrusion, developed by Peijs and co-workers [3][4][5][6]. This process uses bicomponent tapes, in which the outer layer is a lower-melting point copolymer and the inner layer is a homopolymer.…”

Failure behaviour of self-reinforced polypropylene at and below room temperature

“…In case of woven SRPP, the mechanical properties in the [0°/90°] direction are determined by the tape properties after hot compaction, while the properties in the [±45°] direction are dominated by the consolidation quality and the matrix fraction. A higher processing temperature and/or pressure leads to a higher interfacial strength [7]. A well-chosen processing temperature leads to full consolidation while retaining the good mechanical properties of the PP tapes.…”

“…The drawing process enhances the molecular orientation of the PP, which improves the mechanical properties in the drawing direction [4,5]. These fibres or tapes are then woven in the preferred configuration [6][7][8] and compacted at elevated temperature and pressure into a self-reinforced sheet. Several techniques exist for creating the matrix.…”

“…Several techniques exist for creating the matrix. The most important techniques are film stacking [9,10], co-extrusion [7,11,12] and hot compaction [1,6,[13][14][15][16][17]. The focus here is on the hot compaction process.…”